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Book ID Asin: 1849045178
Book Title: Faith, Unity, Discipline: The Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan
Book Author: Hein Kiessling
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Book Category: Books, Politics & Social Sciences, Politics & Government and unknown
Book Rating: 64 ratings

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Book Review

Name: Agha H Amin
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The book is inconclusive and more of a narration of known events
Date: Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2021
Review: This is an interesting book on ISI and starts with basic facts , nothing really new.
On page-22 our author starts making totally unnecessary factual mistakes like he elevates 12 Division to 12 Corps and Major General Akhtar Hussain Malik to General :--

On page 23 Kiesling starts committing more mistakes like e fails to note that Military Intelligence was presented with information about presence of Indian armoured division in Kashmir but its totally incompetent director Brigadier Irshad dismissed it as an Indian deception plan:--

Now this information was available well before the time that this book was written .In March 2001 this scribe interviewed Major General Naseer ullah Khan Babar who described Brigadier Irshad Pakistans Director Military Intelligence as following :--
“The ssg captured a despatch rider of the Indian Army on the Jammu Samba Road on night 3/4 September 65 carrying the mail of the Indian 1st Armoured Division. This mail bag was taken by Director Aviation Brigadier Mahmud to the dmi Brigadier Irshad who dismissed it as an Indian deception plan! Thus the dmi insisted that the Indian 1st Armoured Division was at Jandiala Guru, East of Amritsar while in reality it was in Samba area right next to our jugular vein in Sialkot sector! Thus once the Indian 1st Armoured Division attacked us opposite Chawinda on 8th September we were caught off balance. And then kept reacting to situations. The initiative had been lost, thanks to intelligence. The move of the formation takes 7-10 days, which acts as warning time.”
The authors description of ISI failure to predict the results of 1970 elections in East Pakistan is accurate:-- (page-25)

On page 26 Kiesling starts making false and incorrect statements like inflating troops of Pakistani military who surrendered by about 34,000 :—

As per Indian figures 56,694 regular Pakistani soldiers surrendered.Finding this was absolutely a non issue for Mr Kiesling.
On the same page our brilliant author continues delivering judgements without discussing the broader context :--

Kiesling fails to note that Yahya Khan held Pakistans first elections based in direct adult franchise and Yahya Khan made administrative reforms like restoring Pakistans provinces.
Our brilliant author spent a lot of time in Pakistan but fails to note on page-33 that Jamote were non Baloch by race :--

His spelling Jamoto is also an innovation.
On same page the other while discussing Iraqi weapons seizure fails to note that as per later Pakistani intelligence investigations the seizure was found to be linked to Iraqi support to Baloch secessionists in Iranian Baluchistan against Iranians state with whom Iraq had a serious conflict.

Again on page 33 the writers claim that Marris carried out attacks after migrating to Afghanistan is not based on facts , as Marris hardly carried out any attacks :--

In post 1977 period Baluchistan saw one of the best periods of peace and tranquility all most all along till 2002.

Page 34 Kiessling erroneously terms “Frontier Corps” as “Frontier Constabulary”, two totally different organizations , leaves a bad taste in the mouth and contradicts the authors claim of exhaustive research :--

Frontier Constabulary is police while Frontier Corps is a totally different organization officered by Pakistan Army officers and headed by a serving Pakistan Army general.

On the same page his claims that this force was trained by Babars Frontier corps is also incorrect as this operation was handled by the ISI and the Afghans were trained at the SSG School in Cherat:--

On page 35 Kiessling talks pure and unadulterated pearls of nonsense when he claims that Zia went to Jordan with his unit:--

And what exactly was Zias unit , this our brilliant German author leaves to the readers imagination.
On pages 35 and 36 Kiessling again wrongly quotes Raja Anwar :--

The actual fact was that Zia was saved by then major general gul Hassan and the incident is described in detail in gul hassans memoirs published around 1991 , so this was entirely an avoidable error.
In 1971 Zia was already a running horse and was deputy commander of Pakistans elite 1st armoured division during the 1971 war.

As a good analyst Kiessling was supposed to provide an indepth picture but he makes a cursory reference to people killed in anti Bhutto 1977 agitation without noting that over 75 % were non Punjabis killed in Sindh where Pakistan Army was more trigger happy :---

In chapter titled interim balance sheet 1948-77 our brilliant author has nothing to state about ISI intelligence failure in locating Indian armoured division in 1965 war.
On page-51 Kiessling starts talking absolute nonsense like he delivers a Solomons judgement on great command qualities of Akhtar Abdul Rahman :--

Akhtars role in first Kashmir was nominal .In 1971 he was commanding a divisional artillery brigade in a division where there was almost no action !
How our brilliant German historian of ISI makes Akhtar a great military commander is anybodys guess !

On page 53 Kiesslings account of Brigadier Raza Alis sacking is a piece of fiction :--

Colonel Salman 2 Commando who was closely associated with the ISI operations described Raza Alis removal as because of Akhtar Abdul Rahmans jealousy and irritation with special forces officers like Raza Ali who he found as too independent and more than that too upright.
Colonel Salman in an interview with this scribe described General Akhtar Abdul Rahman as a mediocre officer as DG ISI.

Yousuf was described by Salman as a spineless yesman who Akhtar preferred.

On page 55 again our so called brilliant author misses the real issue although much data was available in form of books and articles:--

Lt General Chishti in his book published in late 1980s described Akhtars removal as ISI boss due to various intermarriages between Akhtars sons and daughters of Lt Gen Zahid Ali Akbar and General Rahimuddin etc. But Kiessling makes no mention of this aspect in his shallow analysis.

As a good analyst Kiessling was supposed to give us good analysis but again he repeatedly fails as on page 61 he fails to note that as Pakistans Director Military Intelligence then general Hamid Gul was responsible for Pakistans greatest intelligence failure i.e detecting 35 Miles Indian ingress inside Siachen in Pakistan in 1983-84.

His biographic description of Gul is also inaccurate :--

He makes no mention of the fact that Guls grandfather and father were from the ranks and the familys Pashtun claims were also flimsy as they came from Hindko (dialect of Punjabi) speaking Hazara tract.The agricultural land that the family got was not near Lahore but near Sargodha.

On page 73 Kiessling promotes a totally civilian journalist Zahid Hussain as the greatest expert in Pakistan Army which seems a German fairy tale :--

On page 81 Kiessling places Rafi Alam as close to General Zia which is factually not correct :--

On page 94 Kiessling starts cooking facts like stating that LTG Shamim Alam Khan did not command a corps whereas he had commanded a corps in Multan from March 1988 to mid 1989.And spells Shamim as Shamin , another German innovation.

One is at a loss why our German author always refers to general Agha Nek as :--
On page 107 Kiessling again dabbles into considerable nonsense:--

Kakars family had migrated many generations back from Zhob to Peshawar and Kakar was culturally more of a Peshawar Hindko than a Pathan.Ayub Khan was remotely a Pathan and Hindko speaking while Yahya was a Persian speaking Qazalbash.How Kiessling distorts history is inexplicable.

Page 109 , our author should have described how incompetent people are regularly promoted in Pakistan Army :--

Iftikhar was sacked a a lieutenant colonel for charges of cowardice and incompetence , demoted to major rank and sent on adverse report to another unit during Baluchistan counter insurgency operations.But Kiessling did not do his research.

The term used is “Struck off duty” and not struck from duty as Kiessling writes and Javed Nasir was not dismissed as Kiessling fallaciously writes but retired.(page 109)

Asad Durrani was also prematurely retired and not dismissed as Kiessling fallaciously claims on page 109 :--

Kiesslings claim on page 111 that Maleeha Lodhi was an ISI expert is also highly questionable :--

On page 112 Kiessling distorts Skardus height from 8000 feet to 11,000 feet :--

On page 116 Kiessling is at a loss why Abbasi was sacked from New Delhi whereas it is well known that he was caught by Indian intelligence conducting a personal meeting with an intelligence source , badly thrashed and declared a persona non grata by the Indians:--

Here above again Kiesslings facts are wrong.Abbasi took permission from his corps commander GM Malik for the attack with the understanding that GM would disown the attack if asked.

Kiesslings use of the word unit is also incorrect since Abbasi was commanding a formation known as FCNA comprising many units.

As far as I recollect Abbasi was transferred to infantry directorate and not logistics as Kiessling claims on page 117 :--

On page 122 Kiessling starts churning absolute nonsense displaying his gross ignorance of basic geography ,an apology of German thoroughness :--

Kohala bridge where Asghar Khan had planned to symbolically hang Bhutto was more than 100 miles from Rawalpindi on border of Kashmir and NWFP province of Pakistan.

On page 122 Kiessling fallaciously describes Lt Gen Qazi from Rawalpindi whereas he was from Attock District :--

On page 141 Kiessling talks absolute nonsense:--

Non combatant is a military term that refers to cooks and sweapers.Kiessling is totally ignorant about military history and perhaps does not know that top US generals and war heroes like Lee Meade and Macarthur were from corps of engineers.

While Kiessling claims to be an expert on ISI he fails to note that ISI was responsible for General Jahangir Karamats downfall as it gathered complete evidence of Jahangir Karamats complicity in Ukrainian tanks kickbacks when it sent an officer to Russia to gather complete evidence which helped Nawaz Sharif in forcing Karamat into retirement in October 1998.

Kiesslings information regarding Ziauddin working with a British consortium is also faulty :--

This scribes father had known the general since long as my grandfather and the generals father were class fellows.In 2008 this scribes father recommended to Shiekh Yusuf of Hasnain Construction Company to appoint the general as advisor.The general was advisor with Shiekh Yusuf and not with Hasnain Lagan JV. As a matter of fact Yusuf kicked out Lagan in 2009 early as Lagan was found to be extremely dubious.

Kiessling totally misses the point that Musharrafs FATA operation initiated in October 2003 was a brilliant deception plan to deceive the Americans and succeeded brilliantly.Musharraf without any provocation initiated an army operation in FATA in 2003 and successfully deceived and milked the Americans into giving Pakistan Army billions of dollars from 2003 till almost 2018 when finally President Trump called the bluff !

On page 188 Kiessling places General Kiani from Jhelum district whereas he is from Rawalpindi district :--

On page 224 Kiessling gives a clean chit to General Kiani regarding the OBL raid whereas ISI sources indicated that both Kiani and Shuja Pasha were fully involved with CIA in the OBL raid as an exercise to help Obama win his 2012 elections:--

Kiesling has nothing to say about how totally inexperienced officers like Ahmad Hayat were posted to ISI were posted to ISI on pure push and pull , although he was sacked for being indecisive during the DI Khan jail break by Taliban of 2013.

The book is inconclusive and more of a narration of known events rather than serious analysis of ISI.Its most serious failing is the fact that it fails to analyse how the ISI under General Musharraf successfully carried out a grand strategic deception from 2001 to 2012 in totally deceiving the Americans in Afghanistan, while Pakistan Army carried out a fabricated operation in FATA against non entities while it successfully provided sanctuary to the vast bulk of Afghan Taliban in Baluchistan.

Journal of Book Reviews-Intelligence Directorate Covert action and internal ops
The enigma explored by Montana University Professor
ISBN-13: 978-1727709261
ISBN-10: 1727709268

This is a very interesting book by Montana University (adjunct) Professor .
The author explains that th genesis of this book was his:-- (page-9)

“Two- month stay at the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan during the summer of 2009. It was there that I learned a great deal more about Afghanistan–Pakistan relations in general and ISI operations in Afghanistan in particular.”

The book examines the following issues in the writers own words:--
1. How has ISI evolved as an institution exercising intelligence and security responsibilities at home and abroad? What were the driving forces behind that evolutionary process?
2. How does ISI fit into the larger Pakistani Intelligence Community?
3. What does the decades- old relationship between ISI and the CIA tell us about the larger US–Pakistan security relationship?

4. What is ISI’s record in providing accurate and timely early warning intelligence to decision- makers?
5. To what extent has ISI disrupted and abused Pakistan’s democratic processes?
6. Is ISI a rogue agency or a state within a state?
7. Can ISI be reined in and the PIC (Pakistani Intelligence community) reformed?
8. How has ISI employed UW (Unconventional warfare) in support of the state’s national
security objectives? To what extent has UW been a successful strategy
for Pakistan?

These are the very interesting question that the writer has formulated as stated in the books beginning and has attempted to answer in this most interesting book.

On page-7 I must add that some of the authors sources have produced some really classical pearls of confusion and nonsense like late Syed Saleem Shahzad and living Steve Coll.

On page-7 our author starts moralizing and states :--

How writers can assume such an air of arrogance is hard to understand ?

Map of Kashmir on page 15 is apology of a decent map.I am surprised at the cartographical poverty of our learned adjunct professor.

Our author makes false and uninformed assertions about how the Kashmir proxy war started on page-16 in a haste to blame the Pakistani military for all the so called perceived ills as the author views them.Like he fallaciously claims that the idea of Kashmir war originated from Colonel Akbar Khan,DSO:--

The Muslim League’s high command had tasked Mian Iftikhar ud Din Minister for Refugees to prepare a plan aimed at ensuring that the Muslim majority state of Kashmir should join Pakistan. Brigadier Akbar Khan then serving in the Pakistani GHQ wrote an appreciation ‘armed revolt inside Kashmir ‘ on Mian Iftikhar ud Din’s request.

The writers assertions on above mentioned page 16 are nothing short of sheer intellectual dishonesty as he falsely claims that it was the army colonel Akbar Khan who forced Jihad in Kashmir on the government.This is a factually incorrect statement.

On page 214 of his book Sardar Shaukat Hayat the man directly responsible for Pakistans proxy war invasion of Kashmir clearly states the sequence of events :--

“Seeing the Maharajas and Indias bad faith,we therefore decided to walk into Kashmir.I was put in charge of operations.I asked for the services of Brigadier Sher Khan and Brigadier Akbar both of 6/13th Frontier Force”.

The author could have easily found this book published in April 1995 but did not ! And more deadly is his basic intellectual dishonesty in preparing a moral case against Pakistan Army by falsely claiming that the invasion was Colonel Akbar Khans idea forced upon ,civilians who were not very keen possibly !

On page 16 our author starts making basic factual mistakes :--

As a matter of fact the tribal invasion of Kashmir began on 20th October 1947 and the tribesmen on night of 20/21st October had crossed the Neelam River bridge in Kashmir.

Muzaffarabad had been captured on morning of 21st October 1947, while our author states that the tribal invasion commenced on 22 October 1947.

On the same page 16 the author makes broadbrushes like he states that proxy war precedent was a Pakistani innovation:--

He totally ignores or forgets or is not aware that proxy wars was a British inheritance of Pakistani state.

The British regularly used proxies for their military purposes as in 1929 when they planned and executed a huge operation with base in North Waziristan to assemble a tribal lashkar very similar to Kashmir 1947 to remove Bacha Saqao in Kabul.

The writer is bad and sloppy with his sources also.He could have quoted Colonel Yahya Effendis book published in 2007 to reinforce his elaboration of proxy war in Kashmir.Effendi in his book examines in detail how Pakistan Army supported the war in Kashmir.

The writer could have inserted a major Pakistani intelligence failure in his book if he read all the available sources carefully.

Like in late 1947 many days before Indian Army arrived in Kashmir the Indians by mistake sent the whole war plan to Lahore by mistake.The plan was sent to Pakistans Director Military Intelligence Brigadier Sher Khan in Pakistan Army Headquarters but Sher Khan as per General Musas narrative in his book “From Jawan to General” just sat over the crucial information.

On page 17 I started having serious doubts about our authors research when he totally falsely states that Pakistans first Intelligence Bureau boss G.Ahmad was a Bengali !

I am perplexed why on earth American authors have to get involved in such unnecessary and fallacious matters.

The fact of the matter is that G.Ahmad was a diehard Punjabi and had no connection with Bengal.Interestingly G.Ahmad was brother of Aziz Ahmad and both brothers had the unique precedent of serving as Pakistans ambassadors to USA one after the other.

On page 21 the author again starts making nonsense statements like elevating Sahibzada Yaqub to an Indian ruling family while he was a small time younger son of an Indian nawab.

On page 22 , again the writer starts making uninformed and naieve statements like below :--

As a matter of fact Pakistans official history of Kashmir war, published in 1970 , contrary to our brilliant adjunct professors assertions states that Pakistan wanted a ceasefire and the very strategic aim of Pakistans Operation Venus was creating conditions where India should accept a ceasefire.

But our brilliant author claims that both Pakistan and India were unhappy with ceasefire.

On page 50 our brilliant analyst promotes Aziz Ahmad who was Pakistans Foreign Secretary to the rank of Minister of State !

The worst part of the book is the authors sloppy handling of Pakistans greatest strategic intelligence failure in 1965.

Here he most unimaginatively quotes Shuja Nawaz whose book was only published in 2008 and gives a totally “false and misleading picture of Pakistans greatest intelligence failure”.

In endnote number 6 our brilliant author quotes Shuja Nawazs books dumb passage below but fails to explain what actually happened and who failed in Pakistans intelligence set up ?

The above is page 222 of Shuja Nawaz’s book Crossed Swords which our author quotes.

The book is inconclusive and more of a narration of known events rather than serious analysis of ISI.Its most serious failing is the fact that it fails to analyse how the ISI under General Musharraf successfully carried out a grand strategic deception from 2001 to 2012 in totally deceiving the Americans in Afghanistan, while Pakistan Army carried out a fabricated operation in FATA against non entities while it successfully provided sanctuary to the vast bulk of Afghan Taliban in Baluchistan.

Name: Qaisar Rashid, Dr
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: a historical, narrative account
Date: Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017
Review: Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency is omnipotent domestically. This is the central idea of this book. Kiessling lived in Pakistan for thirteen years from 1989 to 2002, including four years in Quetta and nine in Islamabad. The book is an attempt to collect and present information (history, its origin and development, tasks and objectives, successes and failures of ISI) chronologically. However, the scope of study is from 1948 to 2011, though the events of 2014 are also included. To fulfil the need of primary research, Kiessling conducted interviews, though he also took the help of secondary research sources ranging from books, newspapers, periodicals to websites, to strengthen his account.

Generally, the book is more narrative or descriptive in nature than it is exploratory or analytical. The overwhelming focus of the book is ISI’s role in Pakistan’s domestic realm, as out of 246 pages, fewer than 30 are on foreign issues. Though the book sends more information to an international reader about Pakistan, the book is no short of revealing attention-grabbing information for a Pakistani reader.

ISI is born

On page 14, Kiessling writes: “The founding father of the ISI is considered to be [Australian born British Army officer, Major General] Walter Joseph Cawthorne, who headed the ISI from January to June 1948 [as its first Director].” Cawthorne drew up ISI’s initial organizational structure and functional areas, as an inter-services organization, which reflected his own job of forging a liaison between the Ministry of Defence and the three Services Headquarters. Cawthorne opted to serve the state of Pakistan after partition in 1947, and he was promoted from Major General to Deputy Chief of Staff in 1951. Cawthorne was the first military man leading ISI as its Director. The tradition of ISI being headed by a military officer (as its Director General or DG) is still followed, though now a military officer can be a serving or retired one.

For better understanding, the rest of the discussion is parsed into four main themes and each theme will be discussed separately.

Theme One: ISI is a functional successor of Intelligence Bureau (IB)

ISI can be called a functional successor of a civilian intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau (IB). On page 13, Kiessling writes: “The ISI was established in 1948 and is generally described as a consequence of the first Pakistan-India war over Kashmir, where there were supposedly substantial reconnaissance gaps on the Pakistan side.” Further, on pages 16 and 17, Kiessling writes: “Cawthorne’s composition of ISI included not only military but also Muslim civilian personnel from the former Indian Intelligence Bureau. These civilian experts formed the backbone of the ISI in its early years…The initial tasks of the new agency were intelligence (reconnaissance) work outside Pakistan’s borders in India and Kashmir…But internally, apart from the Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir, the ISI had no intelligence mandate.” In this way, contrary to the claims of Sean P. Winchell (mentioned in his article, “Pakistan’s ISI: The Invisible Government” International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence, Vol. 16. No. 3, Fall, 2003), it is not that the failure of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) of Pakistan in the first Indo-Pak war (1947-48) to amass correct information led to the formation of ISI but it is that, despite all its intelligence expertise, being a civilian intelligence agency, the IB was found handicapped in an external war zone. The intelligence gathering expertise of the officials of the IB was still required to contribute to the growth of ISI as an intelligence agency ready to meet the needs of an external war theatre in the future. Hence, by the 1950s, Pakistan had two intelligence agencies: ISI for external intelligence; and IB for internal intelligence.

It is a myth that the martial law of General Ayub Khan induced the domestic role of ISI. Instead, the monopoly on information helped General Ayub Khan, the C-in-C, utilize the services of ISI years before he imposed the first martial law on Pakistan. On page 19, Kiessling writes: “[General] Ayub Khan later admitted spying on Prime Minister Feroz Noon, justifying it with his [General’s] concerns about extending his [General’s] service, due to expire in 1959.” The primary duty of ISI was to help General Ayub consolidate his martial law by keeping military and political opponents under observation.

The diversion of attention from external to internal realm affected the performance of ISI externally (and also of MI), as depicted in the failure of ‘Operation Gibraltar’ or in its extension ‘Operation Grand Slam’ leading to the 1965 war with India. On page 23, Kiessling writes: “Later on, in discussions with Ayub Khan, ISI Director Riaz Hussain is said to have justified their failure with the words, ‘All these years were not doing our real work of counterintelligence, because we were too busy chasing your domestic political opponents.”

Instead of holding ISI accountable, later on, the civilian head (Prime Minister) made it more powerful and participatory. On page 26, Kiessling writes: “After Cawthorne’s leadership in 1948, the directorship of the ISI was generally held by a brigadier [or a Major General]. The service was regarded as relatively small and compact. But after the failures of Operations Gibraltar and Grand Slam, it was felt that the ISI needed a stronger leadership. Even more so, after the final loss of East Pakistan, the new President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto realized that the dejected military leadership needed a boost in self-confidence. So in the 1970s for the first time the ISI was headed by a three-star general.” This is how, in December 1971, President Bhutto made Lt. General Ghulam Jilani Khan the first Lt. General as DG ISI.

Theme Two: ISI found a domestic competitor in IB

On the domestic front, ISI carved out its way between the domains of IB and MI, though functionally ISI remained closer to MI than IB. Interestingly, ISI can be considered a functional extension of IB, but they both grew into an intense competition with each other. Domestically, in 1951, IB achieved another feat by discovering a conspiracy within the domain of the armed forces. On page 44, Kiessling writes: “After January 1951, beginning with [General] Ayub Khan, a Pakistani served as head of an Army, which was still being established. From the outset he was confronted with a political coup attempt, known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy. This was uncovered by the IB and not the ISI, and included a major general, some brigadiers and colonels as well as a commander of the Air Force, all of whom were dissatisfied with the course of political developments since 1948.”

However, in 1973, it was the turn of ISI to outshine IB. On pages 36 and 37, Kiessling writes: “In 1973 there was a conspiracy among young officers of the Army and Air Force who blamed [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto and the generals for the loss of East Pakistan and their defeat by India. They succeeded in persuading a brigadier and a colonel to lead their plot but the ISI received well-timed information about the case, which came to be known as the Attock Conspiracy, and observed the group for months undercover until they struck.”

The excellence of both IB and ISI were appreciated. On pages 36 and 37, Kiessling writes: “In 1975, through a directive from the Prime Minister’s office, the ISI was boosted by the setting up of an internal political cell. The cell, already secretly installed by Ayub Khan, was now formally endorsed and expanded quickly. Bhutto then allowed the IB to furnish a parallel special cell, in order to be informed about tendencies and developments within the military…”

Theme Three: Counter-insurgency offers ISI a challenge

In the face of staunch Bengali ethnic nationalism, the first ever counter-insurgency function of ISI failed in East Pakistan. The staunch Bengali nationalism offered little space to ISI operatives to penetrate the ranks of ethnic nationalist, whether or not they were siding with Mukti Bahini (a popular Bengali term to describe the guerilla resistance movement or insurgency launched to make East Pakistan independent in 1971). After 1971, the turn of West Pakistan came. Ethnic nationalism in East Pakistan also fanned ethnic nationalism in West Pakistan, which also started slipping into the abyss of ethnic nationalism. The immediate reason was that the new law regarding the mining of natural resources led to ethnic rising in Baluchistan against the central government in the late 1970. A kind of mutual animosity appeared between pro-centre tribes of Jamoto, Zehir and Bugti, and anti-centre tribes of Marri, Bizenjo and Mengal. The latter were running the provincial government. On page 33, Kiessling writes: “In February 1973, a large cache of weapons was found in the Iraqi embassy [discovered by ISI’s Major Shahid Tirmizi], destined for the Marri tribe. Bhutto accused his opponents in Baluchistan of having separatist intentions and dissolved the provincial parliament. Nawab Akbar Bugti, Chief of the Bugti tribes, was appointed governor, which the Marris and Mengals saw as a betrayal. They reacted with intensified rebellion, and in solidarity with them the North-West Frontier Province [which is today’s Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KPK)] government also resigned…In neighbouring Afghanistan these events were followed with great interest. The Durand Line was never recognized as the state border by Kabul and there were dreams of a greater Afghanistan which would include all of Pakistan’s Pashtun areas. The rebellious groups in Baluchistan were soon receiving covert assistance from Kabul [including the KGB and KHAD].” There were reports of infiltration by terrorists from across the Pak-Afghan border into Pakistan. An insurgency was also expected in NWFP along ethnic lines.

In response, the Pakistan government sprang into action to discourage Kabul from interfering in Baluchistan and NWFP. On page 34, Kiessling writes: “One consequence of the Baluchistan events was the creation of a Special Operations Bureau in the ISI in 1973, which later became the cradle of the legendary Afghanistan Office… The era of the ISI’s actions in Afghanistan now began. A first large-scale operation in 1975 was the encouragement of a rebellion in the Panjshir valley. Though unsuccessful, Kabul [or Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan, the first President of Afghanistan from 1973 to 1978] realized it [or he] could ill afford to underestimate the Pakistan card.” In this way, the lesson learnt in East Pakistan before December 1971 (when the fall of Dhaka took place) helped ISI suppress insurgencies in the western half of West Pakistan after 1972. Nevertheless, to do that ISI had to transcend the Pak-Afghan border. This is how the history of the Afghanistan office in ISI began. It was the Afghanistan Office or the Afghanistan Bureau that swelled in size and ability compared to ISI’s rest of the bureaus.

Theme Four: ISI’s yearning for controlling the political system

This theme comprises six main publicly known episodes from 1988 to 2014 depicting ISI’s craving for regulating the political system.

1. The formation of IJI

After the death of General Zia-ul-Haq in August 1988, the foremost objective before the military-ISI blend was to influence the post-martial law political system. The mode was to create a parliament that could be balanced (not swinging into one political party’s favour), thereby amenable to external manoeuvering. The fear struck the military-ISI composite was that Benazir Bhutto’s political party, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), could secure an overwhelming majority. From pages 75 to 77, Kiessling writes: “DG ISI Hamid Gul …together with Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmed and Major Aamer from the Internal Security Wing of the ISI …cobbled together the party alliance that became known as Islami Jamoori Ithad (‘Islamic Democratic Alliance’, IJI, comprising nine parties including Pakistan Muslim League; PML, and Jamaat-e-Islami; JI) as a political counterweight to the PPP… to avoid a one-sided distribution of political power… On 14 November 1988 [however] the PPP became the largest party in the National Parliament [with 93 seats].” The IJI with 54 seats remained confined to Punjab. The PPP became able to form a coalition government with the help of small political parties and independent parliamentarians in the total house of 207 seats.

2. The Midnight Jackal affair

In June 1989, Benazir Bhutto removed General Hamid Gul from the position of DG ISI on the military fiasco in Jalalabad in 1989. In his place, the retired Lt. General Shamsur Rahman Kallue was made DG ISI without consulting COAS General Beg. This was the first time a retired general was made DG ISI and that without consulting GHQ. The civil-military tension shaped through the formation of IJI embraced a new spike of acrimony.

Two reactions appeared. First, DG ISI was denied participation in regular military meetings and decisions, thereby closing the door of inside information from military to the political government. Second, an attempt was made by the remnants of General Gul to bring a vote of no confidence against the government of Benazir Bhutto. On page 83, Kiessling writes: “The entire drama unfolded in September and October 1989. The first part of the “Midnight Jackal” affair was the attempt by two ISI officers to bribe government parliamentarians to cast their votes against the Benazir Bhutto government in an upcoming vote of no confidence…In the second act of the drama, the government tried to catch the culprits with the help of the IB…The two culprits offering bribes were Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmed and Major Mohammed Aamer, both still active in the army.” This attempt to bring the government down was constructed on the ruse of religion and the same context was used to collect money to bribe politicians of the Opposition. The plan was thwarted by IB by video recording meetings of the opposition hobnobbing with the two ISI men who were offering bribes to their targets to make the vote of no confidence successful. Consequently, the government was saved and both officers were dismissed from the service for ‘retired on fault’. The whole episode made the PPP government distrustful of the military. Retrospectively, if IB had not come to the rescue of the PPP government, it would have not survived the vote of no confidence in the parliament.

3. The Mehrangate scandal

Money was employed to manoeuver the 1990 elections. On page 119, Kiessling writes: “[T]he ISI’s directors, Asad Durrani and Javed Nasir, had deposited US $39 million in foreign currency reserves with the Mehran Bank [which was a private bank], through according to state regulations such funds should have been held exclusively in a national bank…The malpractice surfaced when the ISI’s Lt. Gen. Javed Ashraf, who had succeeded Javed Nasir as DG ISI, wanted to transfer the funds to another bank in January 1993. Yunus Habib [the Chief Operating Officer of the bank] was at first unable to comply, and later could pay only in instalments…In the process the name of the former Army chief Mirza Aslam Beg was mentioned, who confirmed a donation from Yunus Habib of 140 million rupees (then about US$4 million) made in favour of an election cell within the Presidency [when Ghulam Ishaq Khan was the President].” The scandal was called the Mehrangate and this scandal smeared the names of both General Beg and General Durrani.

4. The Judges scandal

The judges of the Supreme Court are already considered pro-military and each time they acted under the ‘doctrine of necessity’ to validate martial laws. The year 2007 was no exception. On page 200, Kiessling writes: “In mid November [2007], a complaint was lodged at the Supreme Court against Musharraf’s re-election as President [held in October 2007]. The judges were to vote on the issue, so the ISI launched a surreptitious campaign of persuasion. At least three judges received secretly taped videos in which they were shown in compromising situations with certain ladies. The ladies, who were sent by the ISI, had been given as ‘thank you gifts’ by clients for services performed, and the judges had happily helped themselves. There were also sensitive videos pertaining to the daughters of other judges. The message was clear: that a positive vote was expected. As it turned out, the court judgement went in their favour; the ISI had won its campaign.” This is how General Musharraf secured his presidential position, but both the judges and ISI lost their face.

5. The Memogate scandal

The proverbial Damocles’ sword always hung over the neck of politicians. On page 228, Kiessling writes: “Memogate was a case in which DG ISI [Ahmad Shuja] Pasha also came under fire. The main character in this scandal was Mansoor Ijaz, an American citizen of Pakistani descent. In September 2011 Ijaz brought the public’s attention to a letter which he claimed was written on the insistence of former Ambassador [Hussain] Haqqani and passed to Admiral Mike Mullen in Washington. The tenor of the letter was that President [Asif] Zardari feared an impending military takeover was asking for help from Washington to prevent this. In the new democratic Pakistan, Memogate quickly became a national affair, especially since Ijaz then claimed that Pasha had visited Arab countries seeking their consent to a planned military coup.” Consequently, DG ISI General Pasha was relieved of his post in March 2012 and on advice of COAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, General Zaheer ul Islam Abbasi was appointed next DG ISI (March 2012-September 2014), whereas new COAS General Raheel Sharif was appointed in November 2013.

6. The Third-Empire affair

The yearning for controlling the political system is difficult to die. On pages 233 and 234, Kiessling writes: “[T]he role of the ISI during the PTI [the Pakistan Tehrek-e-Insaf of Imran Khan] and PAT [Pakistan Awami Tehrik of Allama Tahir-ul-Qadri] demonstrations in Islamabad from August 2014 onwards remains unclear even today. Local political observers have little doubt that the agency was backing it, in spirit and financially. For them the countdown to the whole operation had already begun during Shuja Pasha’s term in office; they see him as its godfather. This view gets credit from the fact that Pasha, already retired and living in Dubai, came over to Pakistan in October 2014 to meet Khan at the house of PTI member Shafqat Mahmood…What part was played by DG ISI Zaheer-ul Islam during the demonstrations is still unknown. Realizing that neither camp was able to bring the proposed one million people on to the streets, he might have – in accordance with the COAS – backtracked and advised both Imran Khan and Tahir-ul-Qadri to steer their followers away from violence and to let the whole undertaking peter out slowly.” On their way from Lahore to Islamabad, both parties kept on mentioning a third-empire who would raise finger against the sitting government. Everyone knew that Khan and Qadri were referring to the COAS [General Raheel Sharif] and inciting him to topple the elected government of Nawaz Sharif. The journey and then sit-in of both the PTI and PAT were expensive to afford. On page 244, Kiessling writes: “In Islamabad a few thousand followers of Imran Khan (PTI) and Tahir-ul-Qadri (PAT) continued their demonstrations till October 2014…During the siege of Islamabad the nucleus of both camps of protestors were paid a modest daily allowance. Political analysts are still asking where this money came from… Due to lack of political alternatives, Pakistan’s military finally did not wish to overthrow the Nawaz Sharif government. But their aim, to weaken the Prime Minister, had been fully achieved.”

Criticism

Throughout the book, Kiessling is found making an obvious attempt to sensationalize the role of ISI in two main ways. First, Kiessling has made an effort to tie ISI’s role to the Kashmir uprising of 1947 and the late 1980s, the Afghan unrest of the late 1970s, and the Khalistan movement of the 1980s. If the criterion were instigation, nowhere in the book has Kiessling come up with any evidence of ISI’s role in the instigation of these movements. Nevertheless, if ISI’s role in the initiation of these movements were accepted, such an avowal would be a great insult to those who launched these movements indigenously to meet their own objectives. Even today, the extant movements are in the control of locals. As mentioned earlier, the main focus of Kiessling’s book is ISI’s role in domestic issues, since out of 246 pages of the book, fewer than 30 are on foreign issues. Certainly, Kiessling needs more background study on these movements to make his final remarks. Second, Kiessling has made an effort to implicate ISI’ role in heinous incidents (such as Mumbai bombings and attacks, 9/11 events and the presence of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan) happened regionally and internationally. Kiessling made this attempt by relying on two things. First, links and speculations. That is, one person is linked to another and then to another and then to any known official of ISI and hence the speculation that there must be information and that the information might have been passed on. Second, claims of terrorists captured. That is, after the arrest, a terrorist confessed to have connections in ISI. Both these points, the speculation and the claim, need verification for their validity. Unfortunately, the book offers no verification at all.

The era from 1979 to 1989 was the golden era of ISI because of two reasons. First, ISI was supported from both internally and externally to enhance its role in Afghanistan. Second, the lengthy tenure of General Rehman (1980-1987) as DG ISI offered ISI stability and consistency, especially when this tenure coincided with the tenure of COAS-cum-President General Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988). The era is inimitable now, as the ground realities have changed forcing ISI to readjust its own goals and objectives. The slurring and demeaning consequent to the formation of IJI, the Midnight Jackal affair, the Mehrangate scandal, the Judges scandal, the Memogate scandal, and the Third-Empire affair are a testament to the fast receding role of ISI, along with the military, in the political affairs of Pakistan.

ISI can no more make or break political governments. Compared to the past, ISI is almost out of political scene, especially in the face of growing awareness in the masses and in political parties. With the political system gaining strength, there are possibilities that IB will garner more strength domestically than ISI. The internal political wing of ISI may persist, but it will have to sweat blood for its survival.

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